Why you should be eating oats for Christmas

It would be the university of Aberdeen that comes out with a press release suggesting you eat oats for Christmas – the Scottish are famous for liking their porridge.

It doesn’t sound like much of an alternative to Christmas turkey – though fortunately what the new study from Aberdeen shows is that eating oats as a supplement to your diet can be good enough to get all the blood-pressure lowering benefits, without having to cut anything out.

It’s not a complete surprise that oats are good for you – it’s the sort of thing that people tell you in third form biology all the time. But apparently having three portions of wholemeal or oats a day every day can lower the risk of developing cardiovascular disease because blood pressure is significantly reduced.

They say: “The study has clear public health implications and suggests that this Christmas wholegrain wheat and oat-based recipes should be on everyone’s festive menu.”

Though if the roads don’t get cleared in Scotland and delivery trucks can’t get through, then it could be that people end up eating oats for Christmas anyway and not just because of their blood pressure.

The study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2010; 92:733-40 `Effect of increased consumption of whole-grain foods on blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk markers in healthy middle-aged persons: a randomized controlled trial.